Scouting home and abroad for things that inspire good living

Faces in Stone

Welcome to South Dakota, nicknamed “great faces, great places.” The retro sign and license plate design—which might just be dated, but kind of fun nonetheless—and its tag line are well put as there are some great faces: five to be exact. South Dakota’s Black Hills boasts the carvings of four U.S. presidents and a Native American warrior which attract visitors and admirers from all over the world.

mount rushmore

Gutzon Borglum’s depiction of four United States presidents carved into a mountainside is grand and lifelike. Originally commissioned by Doane Robinson to aid tourism to South Dakota, the project took on a national focus and was ready to open to the public in 1941, 14 years after construction began.

Driving through bending roads along deep hillsides and mountain faces covered in tall pine trees and granite, the unsuspecting visual of the four heads peers over the tree tops. It’s a few more winding turns where the impressive masterpiece come in and out of view until arriving at the welcome center. Six dollars buys you an annual parking pass and the ability to gaze comfortably from a wide terrasse or hike right to the bottom of the rubble which lies beneath the carvings’ waist coasts.

crazy horse

The mood at Crazy Horse Memorial diverges from the national memorial we had just visited. It is still under construction; while Crazy Horse’s face is near complete, his horse is a mere outline. Funded exclusively by non-governmental resources, as the Native Americans behind the structure are opposed to federal support, it’s a slower process but it yields a truthful, heartfelt account of the grim truth of frontier history which has written over that of the Native American one.

A Lakota elder, Henry Standing Bear, commissioned the sculpture so that “the white man would know the red man had heroes, also.”

The Sioux were recognized in the treaty of 1868 at Fort Laramie as the owners of the Black Hills “for as long as the grass shall grow and the rivers will flow” — until gold was discovered in these hills.

The Great Sioux War broke out against the frontiersman fighting to control the land and it was in this region that the Battle of Little Bighorn took place. Oft referred to as Custer’s Last Stand, the battle was an overwhelming victory for the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho, which included Crazy Horse, and had been inspired by the visions of Sitting Bull.